A. Lincoln: A Biography

In this important new biography, Ronald C. White, Jr. offers a fresh and fascinating definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity - what today's commentators are calling "authenticity" - whose internal moral compass is the key to understanding his life. Through meticulous research, utilizing recently discovered Lincoln letters, legal papers, and photographs, White depicts Lincoln as a person of intellectual curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, and capable of changing his mind.

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson

The Passage of Power follows Lyndon Johnson through both the most frustrating and the most triumphant periods of his career - 1958 to 1964. It is a time that would see him trade the extraordinary power he had created for himself as Senate Majority Leader for what became the wretched powerlessness of a Vice President in an administration that disdained and distrusted him. Yet it was, as well, the time in which the presidency, the goal he had always pursued, would be thrust upon him in the moment it took an assassin’s bullet to reach its mark.

Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes

Until about 1800, the West and the Islamic realm were like two adjacent, parallel universes, each assuming itself to be the center of the world while ignoring the other. As Europeans colonized the globe, the two world histories intersected and the Western narrative drove the other one under. The West hardly noticed, but the Islamic world found the encounter profoundly disrupting.

Debt: The First 5,000 Years

Every economics textbook says the same thing: Money was invented to replace onerous and complicated barter systems - to relieve ancient people from having to haul their goods to market. The problem with this version of history? There’s not a shred of evidence to support it. Here anthropologist David Graeber presents a stunning reversal of conventional wisdom. He shows that for more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods - that is, long before the invention of coins or cash.

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World

The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.

Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War

It was the best of times and the worst of times for Hollywood before the war. The box office was booming, and the studios’ control of talent and distribution was as airtight as could be hoped. But the industry’s relationship with Washington was decidedly uneasy - hearings and investigations into allegations of corruption and racketeering were multiplying, and hanging in the air was the insinuation that the business was too foreign, too Jewish, too "un-American" in its values and causes. Could an industry this powerful in shaping America’s mind-set really be left in the hands of this crew?

The Guns of August

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic, historian Barbara Tuchman brings to life the people and events that led up to World War I. This was the last gasp of the Gilded Age, of Kings and Kaisers and Czars, of pointed or plumed hats, colored uniforms, and all the pomp and romance that went along with war. How quickly it all changed...and how horrible it became.

Treasure Island

Treasure Island must be the most enthralling adventure book ever written. As we listen to the voice of Jim Hawkins telling his extraordinary tale, and later that of his companion Dr. Livesey, we are plunged into a world of pirates, buried treasure, mutiny, and deceit.

The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America

In The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan put the environmental disaster of the Dust Bowl at the center of a rich history, told through characters he brought to indelible life. Now he performs the same alchemy with The Big Burn, the largest-ever forest fire in America, a tragedy that cemented Teddy Roosevelt's legacy.

The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation

In iLeadership, Jay Elliot gives the listener the opportunity of seeing Steve Jobs as only his closest associates have ever seen him, and to learn what has made him - and the mystique of his management style - capable of creating tools so extraordinary that they have remade three industries and have transformed the way we create, consume, and communicate with each other.

No One Would Listen: A True Financial Thriller

No One Would Listen is the exclusive story of the Harry Markopolos-lead investigation into Bernie Madoff and his $65 billion Ponzi scheme. While a lot has been written about Madoff's scam, few actually know how Markopolos and his team - affectionately called "the Fox Hounds" by Markopolos himself - uncovered what Madoff was doing years before this financial disaster reached its pinnacle. Unfortunately, no one listened, until the damage of the world's largest financial fraud ever was irreversible.

We the Living

We the Living portrays the impact of the Russian Revolution on three people who demand the right to live their own lives. At its center is a girl whose passionate love is her fortress against the cruelty and oppression of a totalitarian state. Rand said of this book: "It is as near to an autobiography as I will ever write."

Classical Mythology

These 24 lectures are a vibrant introduction to the primary characters and most important stories of classical Greek and Roman mythology. Among those you'll investigate are the accounts of the creation of the world in Hesiod's Theogony and Ovid's Metamorphoses; the gods Zeus, Apollo, Demeter, Persephone, Hermes, Dionysos, and Aphrodite; the Greek heroes, Theseus and Heracles (Hercules in the Roman version); and the most famous of all classical myths, the Trojan War.

The Seamstress

Told with the same old-fashioned narrative power as the novels of Herman Wouk, The Seamstress is the true story of Seren (Sara) Tuvel Bernstein and her survival during wartime. This powerful eyewitness account of survival, told with power and grace, will stay with listeners for years to come.

Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone

You’ve got a business colleague who’s hostile...a client who’s furious...a staffer who’s deeply cynical—how do you get people to do what you want in tough situations like these? In Just Listen, veteran psychiatrist and business coach Mark Goulston reveals the secret to how to get through to anyone, even when productive communication seems impossible.“Here's the challenge,” Mark says.

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion

In The Righteous Mind, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt explores the origins of our divisions and points the way forward to mutual understanding. His starting point is moral intuition - the nearly instantaneous perceptions we all have about other people and the things they do. These intuitions feel like self-evident truths, making us righteously certain that those who see things differently are wrong. Haidt shows us how these intuitions differ across cultures, including the cultures of the political left and right.

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

Whether he was introducing the latest iPad or delivering a keynote presentation, Steve Jobs electrified audiences with his incomparable style and showmanship. He didn’t just convey information in his presentations; he told a story, painted a picture, and shared a vision. He gave his audience a transformative experience that was unique, inspiring, and unforgettable. Now you can do it too, by learning the specific techniques that made Jobs the most captivating communicator on the world stage.

The Pixar Touch: The Making of a Company

The Pixar Touch is a lively chronicle of Pixar Animation Studios' history and evolution, and the "fraternity of geeks" who shaped it. With the help of visionary businessman Steve Jobs and animating genius John Lasseter, Pixar has become the gold standard of animated filmmaking, beginning with a short special effects shot made at Lucasfilm in 1982 all the way up through the landmark films Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Wall-E, and others.

The Selfish Gene

Richard Dawkins' brilliant reformulation of the theory of natural selection has the rare distinction of having provoked as much excitement and interest outside the scientific community as within it. His theories have helped change the whole nature of the study of social biology, and have forced thousands to rethink their beliefs about life.

Life on the Mississippi [Blackstone]

The Mississippi River, known as “America’s River” and Mark Twain are practically synonymous in American culture. The popularity of Twain’s steamboat and steamboat pilot on the ever-changing Mississippi has endured for over a century. A brilliant amalgam of remembrance and reportage, by turns satiric, celebratory, nostalgic, and melancholy, Life on the Mississippi evokes the great river that Mark Twain knew as a boy and young man and the one he revisited as a mature and successful author.

Heroes and Legends: The Most Influential Characters of Literature

Odysseus. Robinson Crusoe. Harry Potter. What do these memorable characters have in common? Why do we turn to certain stories again and again? And what impact have they made on world history? These 24 eye-opening lectures give fresh insight into some of the greatest heroes in world literature, from warriors such as Beowulf and Odysseus to unexpected heroes such as Uncle Tom and Sancho Panza. Professor Shippey gives you an inside glimpse into the writer's process.

The Viral Storm: The Dawn of a New Pandemic Age

In The Viral Storm, award-winning biologist Nathan Wolfe tells the story of how viruses and human beings have evolved side by side through history; how deadly viruses like HIV, swine flu, and bird flu almost wiped us out in the past; and why modern life has made our species vulnerable to the threat of a global pandemic. Wolfe's research missions to the jungles have earned him the nickname "the Indiana Jones of virus hunters," and here Wolfe takes listeners along on his groundbreaking and often dangerous research trips - to reveal the surprising origins of the most deadly diseases....

How to Win an Election: An Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians

How to Win an Election is an ancient Roman guide for campaigning that is as up-to-date as tomorrow's headlines. In 64 BC when idealist Marcus Cicero, Rome's greatest orator, ran for consul (the highest office in the Republic), his practical brother Quintus decided he needed some no-nonsense advice on running a successful campaign.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Hailed as one of the world’s masterpieces of psychological realism, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high-court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face-to-face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

Eat Move Sleep: How Small Choices Lead to Big Changes

In Eat Move Sleep, Tom Rath delivers an audiobook that will improve your health for years to come. Quietly managing a serious illness for more than 20 years, Tom has assembled a wide range of information on the impact of eating, moving, and sleeping. Written in his classic conversational style, Eat Move Sleepfeatures the most proven and practical ideas from his research. This remarkably quick listen offers advice that is comprehensive yet simple and often counterintuitive but always credible.

Publisher's Summary

In this important new biography, Ronald C. White, Jr. offers a fresh and fascinating definition of Lincoln as a man of integrity - what today's commentators are calling "authenticity" - whose internal moral compass is the key to understanding his life. Through meticulous research, utilizing recently discovered Lincoln letters, legal papers, and photographs, White depicts Lincoln as a person of intellectual curiosity, comfortable with ambiguity, and capable of changing his mind.

The reader is treated to an exploration of Lincoln's compelling words, his changing ideas on slavery, the shaping of the modern role of Commander-in-Chief, and his surprising religious odyssey.

A. Lincoln, so titled for the way Lincoln signed his name, sheds an innovative and profound light on our nation's most beloved leader for a new generation of Americans.

What the Critics Say

"Ronald C. White's A. Lincoln is the best biography of Lincoln since David Donald's Lincoln (1995)... Amid all the books on Lincoln that will be published during the coming year, this one will stand out as one of the best." (James M. McPherson, author of Battle Cry of Freedom, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize)

This was an interesting study of a great man as seen through the eyes of those who knew him best, as well as through his personal writings and letters. The book was fact based, informative and surprisingly humorous at times, as Lincoln did indeed, have quite a sense of humor. Lincoln was able to find the light side and humor, even among harsh circumstances. Interestingly, as President, he had an open door policy and hardly anyone was ever turned away. He was a common man, self-taught who learned by doing, for he was not formally schooled. He was a self made made man that carried with him-a sense of humor, genuine common sense and a vision for our country.
A wonderful book for someone who desires a greater understanding of Lincoln's life, which begins with him as a child. Although slow moving and dry at times, the insight into Lincoln as a man and as The President was well worth my listening time.

Great biography of a great man.
Inspiring book.
Though it is very long and VERY detailed, at times too detailed, it is likely that Lincoln, the man of facts and details would have liked it. It starts very slowly and takes time to get into the story, but again, it was probably very typical of Lincoln to be this way.
Recommended.

This book was a three. It was not strong, it was not weak, it presented the facts in an acceptable manner. I would go somewhere else and look for the same facts being presented in a more interesting and entertaining manner.

The history behind this great man is fascinating but the book tended to draw too much on the details of the Illinois Legislature, and the US Congress rather than Lincoln the man. Certainly a good book if you want to the details of congress, but if you're looking to hear about Lincoln as a man, father, husband, and beloved President, you might want to get another opinion.

It was interesting and enjoyable to understand more about Lincoln's relationships and interaction with the people around him and this book does a great job exploring those relationships. Once again I feel this would be a better read than listen, right now there is a part I would like to 're-read' but on the Kindle I cannot imagine how long locating it would take.

The book underscores Lincoln's careful attention to details and prefection. His constant soul searching is impressive. I suppose most of all is his ability to change and reconsider. We, as Americans, are lucky he was in the right place at a time that lead him to become one of our heros. I am glad I listened but this is not a book I could recommend.

This is a very good and informative book. Even though I already knew a lot about Lincoln and the Civil War, I still learned a lot from this book. One thing in particular I liked was the amount of time the author devoted to his life before his presidency. Often books on important people focus too much attention on the events you already know, which made them so famous. These often minimize their life before that important event, which means that you won't be able to learn what really made them tick. This book doesn't do that, nor does it focus too much on the battle history of the Civil War. On the Civil War, it focuses (like it should) on Lincoln's role, and describes how his views changed and what led up to important decisions like his issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation. I highly recommend this book.

The book is fact-heavy about Abe Lincoln's early years, which gets things off to a slow start. But later it is fact-heavy about the years leading up to and during his two terms as a wartime president which is really very interesting.

One particularly noteworthy thing about this author's Lincoln biography is his dissection of some of Lincoln's more important speeches. I found that much more interesting than I would have guessed and really enjoyed it.

Your report has been received. It will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.

Can't wait to hear more from this listener?

You can now follow your favorite reviewers on Audible.

When you follow another listener, we'll highlight the books they review, and even email* you a copy of any new reviews they write. You can un-follow a listener at any time to stop receiving their updates.

* If you already opted out of emails from Audible you will still get review emails by the listeners you follow.